


Come True

by pauraque



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Community: femslashex, Dreams and Nightmares, F/F, Lucid Dreaming, femslash exchange 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-30 08:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21424942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pauraque/pseuds/pauraque
Summary: Luna learns that Ginny has been troubled by nightmares, and offers to help her overcome them using lucid dreaming. Of course, Luna also has dreams of her own.
Relationships: Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 22
Kudos: 39
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2019





	Come True

**Author's Note:**

  * For [2Nienna2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/2Nienna2/gifts).

> I hope you enjoy this! Your prompts and suggestions were a pleasure to work with.

For the third morning in a row, Luna noticed that Ginny appeared at the breakfast table looking unusually pale, with dark circles under her eyes. She was one of the last of the Gryffindors to leave for class, still sitting there glumly stirring half-eaten porridge as others jostled and hurried off around her. Someone bumped against her chair, and she barely flinched.

When at last she dragged herself up to leave, picking up her book bag as though it were awfully heavy, Luna rose too and came to walk beside her.

"Good morning."

Ginny glanced up, bleary-eyed. "Oh. Morning, Luna."

"You've been looking a bit tired," Luna said, reminding herself not to speak too loudly when talking of something personal. "Are you feeling all right?"

"I guess I haven't been sleeping well. You're the first one who's asked," Ginny admitted.

They rounded the corner, and Luna remembered to look round and make sure none of the other students walking nearby were the sort who made fun. She moved a little closer to Ginny's side and asked, "Have you had nightmares?"

Ginny's shoulders tensed. "How did you know that?"

"I only guessed. I used to have them a lot. You look the way I used to look in the mirror in the morning, after I'd had them."

"You used to? You don't have them now?"

"No," Luna said. "I learnt a way to keep from having them."

Ginny raised a sceptical eyebrow. "This isn't going to be something you learnt from some creature that doesn't— er, that we'll never be able to find, is it?"

Luna felt a laugh bubble up from her chest. Some people might have said that in a mean way, but she knew Ginny wouldn't do that. Knowing that gave her a nice, cosy feeling. "No, of course not. I learnt it from Professor Flitwick."

Ginny's exhausted features relaxed and managed a smile. "Oh, that's all right then. What is it?"

They'd arrived at the Transfiguration classroom door, and class was nearly starting. "I haven't got time to tell you now. What if we met tonight, after the..." Luna raised her eyebrows in what she hoped was a meaningful way. Everyone else had already gone inside, but she still oughtn't mention the DA meeting out loud.

Ginny nodded, understanding. "Looking forward to it," she yawned, and shook her head as she entered the classroom, rubbing her eyes. "I can't go on like this."

*

It had been in Luna's first year at Hogwarts that Professor Flitwick taught her the way to escape from nightmares.

Not every night, but often enough, she would dream of running through a labyrinth of alleyways, chasing after her mother. No matter how fast she ran, she watched as the flutter of her mother's robes disappeared round dark corners, over and over again, always just out of Luna's reach. Luna tried to call out to her, but her voice had been stolen and would not sound, no matter how desperately she tried.

She would awaken gasping for breath, her pulse thundering in her ears. At home, she would make a terrified dash for her father's room and spend the rest of the night cuddled up beside him. But at school, there was no-one to comfort her. The other girls in her dormitory probably wouldn't have liked being woken up.

During the school year, Professor Flitwick was the closest thing to a father that Luna had, so naturally she sought him out. He was so kind, listening patiently. And then, as he so often did when any student had difficulties, he lent her a book. This one was called _The Art and Magic of Lucid Dreams_.

It was this very book that Luna brought to the DA meeting to give to Ginny after the others had left. It seemed curiously appropriate to show it to her in the now-quiet Room of Requirement, where these past few weeks they'd been learning to defend themselves from harm to their bodies; this was a book that had taught Luna how to defend against harm to her heart.

"You've got to know you're dreaming," Luna said as Ginny turned the pages of the book in her lap. "That's the first thing. There's not even any magic to that bit. Even Muggles can do it."

"How?"

"It says just here," Luna told her. She reached over, gently taking the pages from her and turning back to page one. As she did so, her side pressed against Ginny's, and Luna noticed the warmth and solidness of her body. "You begin by asking yourself during the day if you're dreaming. Are you dreaming now?"

"Er, no?" Ginny tilted her head quizzically. She might never have been asked that question before. "I don't think so."

"How do you know you're not?"

Ginny glanced round the room, looking a bit at a loss. "Well... This feels real enough."

"Dreams feel real too, right up until you wake up," Luna pointed out. "But in dreams, things always change. You find yourself in different places and times without doing any magic. If you keep checking whether that's happening, you'll start to check when you're dreaming too, and then you'll know. You've just got to make a habit of questioning reality."

A broad, lovely smile spread across Ginny's face. "I reckon you were already pretty good at that," she said in a fondly teasing way that wasn't the least bit mean.

Luna felt an odd little flutter somewhere deep down inside herself, and smiled too. "Maybe it helped. But if Muggles can do it, I suspect anyone can. Shall we look over the rest of the chapter?"

*

That night, perhaps due to thinking about nightmares, Luna finds herself in dark alleyways again, searching for someone who can never be found. It's hardly an effort anymore, though, to turn round and find a set of stairs leading upward that wasn't there before she willed it to be. She leaps like a hare from one platform to the next, higher and higher, until the darkness is left far below, and the world around her turns to an even-brightening rainbow of sunset colours.

Luna has found it's often easier to run away from dreamt-of fears than to force them to turn into something else; the effort of doing so tends to wake her up. So she is still aware that she is dreaming, but once she's no longer in danger, she holds the reins of her imagination only lightly, allowing it to go where it will. It's like a play in which she is author, actor, and audience, all three at once.

When at last she climbs up over the edge of a sheer cliff that opens out onto a pasture of purple rushes, beautiful and safe. There are waterfalls flowing down on either side of her from the sky, and she holds her hands out beneath them as she walks between, enjoying the curious sensation of her mind half-guessing at what such a quantity of water ought to feel like running through her fingers.

It is a lovely dream, the kind that sometimes makes her feel a bit cheated when she awakens, as though she'd been reading an engrossing book and was interrupted before the last page.

*

Over the next few days, Luna noticed Ginny reading the book whenever she had a chance. Some of the other Ravenclaws often said with scorn that Gryffindors didn't like to read, but Luna thought perhaps they only needed to find a topic they were passionate about.

Sometimes when Ginny was concentrating hard on a page, the tip of her tongue would poke out between her lips, as though she didn't know she was doing it. When Luna saw that, she noticed the word _cute_ floating round in her head, but wasn't sure quite where to place it.

"I'm not dreaming now," Ginny said confidently when they met again after the next DA meeting. "I think it's starting to work. I've thought I might be in a dream a couple of times now when I was sleeping, only I couldn't change anything."

"Have you tried just waking up? I've found that much easier than changing things."

"I've tried, but I'm not sure I'm doing it right. How does it feel when it's working?"

Luna squinted at her memories, bringing them into focus. "It feels like pushing something heavy," she said at last. "I feel it in my head. There's a weight there, and I push it, and finally it pops loose and I'm awake. I used to have to push terribly hard, but now it's a bit easier. I guess I've grown stronger from so much pushing." She curled her arm and made a little muscle.

Ginny grinned and reached out to touch her bicep. "Oh yeah, I can feel that. You're going to be like one of those circus strongmen pretty soon — in your dreams, anyway."

They shared a giggle. Ginny's fingertips seemed to linger over her skin for just a moment longer than one would have expected, almost a caress. Their eyes met, and Ginny drew away, her cheeks looking a little pinker than usual.

*

Luna is dreaming that she is in a sunlit forest, walking up a hill. She knows she is dreaming, but isn't trying to change anything. Just watching herself. There are striped daylight owls swooping from tree to tree, turning somersaults in the air. The path ahead of her continually rises, yet she doesn't struggle to climb it. Her feet are light and she is also rising to match the spring green carpet rolling out before her.

And it is a carpet now, leading down the alabaster corridor of a castle, and the trees and owls are colourful portraits along the walls. She is poised now to turn away from anything frightening that may leap at her from one of the myriad of open doors she floats past.

But the threat turns out to be straight ahead: Miles away but quickly approaching, the hallways is filling with seawater that flows down like a great tide from the distant ceiling, bearing down on her in the shape of a tremendous whale that threatens to swallow her up.

She quickly escapes into another room, which she's decided is safe. In this safe room, there is a Hogwarts dormitory bed, but the canopy is royal blue and so very grand. She finds that she wants to see Ginny sleeping there, and so she does; the girl is dressed in rich red robes with her hands clasped over her chest, her hair flowing out upon the pillow like a halo. But her sleep is troubled, her brow knit. Perhaps she has suffered in her slumber for a thousand years.

With careful purpose, going slowly so as to ensure that she doesn't break the dream, Luna leans down and presses a kiss against Ginny's rosy lips. She has never had a kiss before, and she can feel her imagination struggling to paint a true picture of the sensation. But it _feels_ true, oh so truly soft and warm and lovely, and tastes sweet like ice cream.

She thinks that Ginny's eyes are about to open, but just then, she hears a funny little verse sing out in her mind:

_When she finds the sleeping beauty_  
_The handsome prince must do her duty!_

...which somehow seems so ridiculously funny that she is overcome with it and begins to laugh in her dream, harder and harder until she falls over backwards—

—and then awakening in her real bed, still giggling in the darkness and hugging herself in topsy-turvy delight.

*

By the time of their next meeting, Ginny seemed to have mastered waking herself up from bad dreams. Now the trouble was that she still wasn't getting any sleep.

"I'm really trying," she said. She pressed a frustrated fist hard against the cover of the book. "But every time I try to make something different happen, I just wake up. At first I was glad I didn't have to sit through the whole nightmare every time, but now I'm just so _tired_..." Her eyes began to glisten.

"Oh— let me..." Luna fished out a handkerchief and offered it.

"I'm not..." Ginny began to object, but nonetheless acquiesced and accepted it with a sniffle.

Luna just sat quietly beside her for a minute. This was something she'd learnt as she'd grown a bit older: Sometimes it helps to just let people feel for a bit before jumping in with an answer.

At last she said, "There's something else we could try. I'm sure you saw it in the later chapters, it explains all the proper charms for it... I could try to come into your dream with you."

Ginny drew a sharp little breath. "Oh, I... Would you really? I mean, it's so nice of you, but I don't know." She was wringing Luna's handkerchief between her hands, a torn expression on her face. "I'm sure you could do it — you've always been good at charms — the only thing is I don't want to, you know..."

Luna didn't know, so she waited patiently for Ginny to finish.

"I don't want you to get scared," Ginny admitted, her voice bitter with shame. "Ever since last year, since _he's_ come back, that's what I've dreamt of. Sometimes I think that's why nobody else ever asks me what's the matter, like they think it's all going to be like it was in first year..."

After absorbing this, Luna chose her words carefully. "I don't think it's like that. I think they're only dreams. If it were something worse, I don't think you'd have been able to wake from them so easily — the book said so. And, well, I've never seen another person's nightmare, but it's hard to think that someone else's could be scarier than one's own. And I'd know it wasn't real all along."

Ginny bit her lip worriedly. "Are you sure? You know you don't have to. You've helped me so much already."

"I know," Luna said. "But we're friends, aren't we?" She felt a little shy saying so, but surely, by now, it was true. "I think you'd do the same for me, if you could."

Sitting close beside her, Luna felt a tremble go through Ginny's body. A tear finally fell and trickled down her cheek, so it was well that she already had Luna's handkerchief to wipe it away.

*

When she dreams that night, Luna knows (as one always knows things with such certainty in dreams) that the charms she and Ginny cast on one another at sundown worked. It still feels like a dream, but the palette seems slightly shifted round the colour wheel, like looking at someone else's painting instead of one's own.

She is on a shining wet street, gleaming with the reflections of strange lights on things that might be buildings, but are made of the stone walls of Hogwarts. It's crowded like a grand, intimidating city, but the throngs of people rushing past don't seem to see her, bumping against her as though she isn't there. Pressing herself against the wall so as not to be knocked down, Luna sees that they are all people who were spectating at the Triwizard Tournament, some of them repeated to fill up the crowd. They are whispering words that don't make sense and only sound like _hush hush hush_. It makes Luna feel afraid to speak. And when she tries to look more closely at their faces, they all go white-faced and black-eyed, twisted in gleeful deception.

It is not real, though; it is Ginny's dream. Luna must find her.

She slinks carefully along the wall and ducks round a corner to get away from the people. By taking this turn, she's successfully made them go away, but now the world is changing. She is in a maze of looming steel walls, far too high and smooth to climb, extending upward to the eternity of a hazy black and red sky. It doesn't look like the rabbit-warren alleys of her own nightmares, but it has something of the same helpless feeling about it. It reeks of power and makes Luna feel very small.

She wanders for hours or days, knowing Ginny is somewhere within, but not how to find her. The walls begin to twitch, to beat like a heart, hellishly hot around her and looking hard into her soul.

Luna is frightened, and the fear twists deep down into her stomach. If she were dreaming this alone, she would wake up so she wouldn't have to see it. But she will have to change it instead. She can't leave Ginny alone in this great and terrible place.

She steadies her breath and reaches into her pocket. Exerting a little mental pressure, she finds a key there. Looking to her left (somehow it's always easier to make things appear there) she sees a door, and tries it. Her key unlocks the door — unlocks every door, one after another, like falling dominoes. She passes through them but still feels the danger pursuing her.

The last door Luna enters leads her into a house with many rooms. She thinks it is Ginny's house, though she's never been there. She hears the sound of fleeing footsteps, and Ginny's voice crying out in pain. Luna reaches out and finds she is able to grasp her hand and stop her. The oppressive heat and force of terror is bearing down on them from somewhere nearby, and though Luna is holding Ginny tightly in her arms now, she doesn't know what to do, feeling lost in a fear that's foreign to her own mind.

"Please help," she whispers into Ginny's ear, and it's all she's able to say.

It is enough.

In an instant, it is Ginny's arm that is supporting her, and in Ginny's other hand there appears a violet crystal heart.

Luna knows then what to do. She places her hand over Ginny's, and from between their fingers an immense blazing of light comes streaming out in all directions, making a bubble that starts from a single point and extends outward to surround the two of them and then the whole house, pushing back anything fearful that stands in its way as easily as brushing dust from a window sill.

After a minute or an hour, all is quiet, and there is no one else in the house.

Ginny takes Luna by the hand and leads her to a room that Luna supposes must be Ginny's own. Luna tries to help Ginny lie down on the bed, but it's not really clear that Ginny isn't doing the same for her at the same time, which makes her smile. In a dream, both can be true.

In bed beside her, Luna slides her arms around Ginny, feeling her hair, the weight of her body, the softness of her skin. Ginny has made herself nude, and Luna finds she wants to see that, but since she's never seen it before, her vision swims and fragments. She closes her eyes, not wanting to be awakened by her failure of imagination. For the feeling of being safe and sound in bed with Ginny is already far beyond anything she would ever have thought possible, even in dreams.

*

The next day was Saturday, and Luna woke up late, sensing in the stillness beyond her bed curtains that there was nobody else in the dorm. She felt so wonderfully warm all over, and when she stretched out and wiggled her toes, it sent tingles all through her body. Smiling to herself, she rolled over and hugged her pillow tightly to her chest, giving it a good squeeze before hopping out of bed.

Washed and dressed, Luna found Ginny sitting by the lake. She often sat there, even when others thought it was far too cold. Her face was already a little rosy from the wind, but when she looked up to see Luna there, she blushed even more deeply.

Luna wasn't sure what to say. It was the first time she'd dreamt with someone, and she didn't know what one was meant to say the morning after. At last she asked, "Did you sleep well?"

Ginny burst out laughing — not meanly, of course — and patted the grass beside her, beckoning Luna to sit.

Luna did, and they were silent for a while, looking out at the grey water rippling out from beneath the ducks that dabbled on the lake's surface, and the misty slopes of the hills beyond. It was a cloudy, chilly day, and nothing like a dream, but the waking world had a quiet beauty all its own. Luna tucked her hands into the sleeves of her jumper.

"You're pretty amazing, you know that?" Ginny said a minute later. She squinted at Luna against the wind.

"Am I?"

"I think so."

"No-one's ever said so before."

"Well, what do they know," Ginny said carelessly, picking a stray thread off Luna's jumper and smoothing out the fabric. "They've never had you come and rescue them from their nightmares before."

Luna shook her head. "I don't think I rescued you. You rescued me in the end."

Ginny smiled wryly, and Luna noticed for that for the first time in weeks, her smile didn't look tired. "Maybe we rescued each other. I guess we made a good team."

"We can stay a team, if you'd like," Luna ventured. "Dream together again, I mean. It doesn't only have to be for nightmares."

Ginny's face flushed again; she looked down at her hands.

"Have I said something wrong? You look embarrassed. I don't try to embarrass people, but I know sometimes I do," Luna admitted.

Ginny shook her head and met Luna's eyes. "Honestly, no. I'm really glad you said that. I want that too, but I wasn't sure you did." Ginny's look made it seem like she was searching for something, and Luna noticed that their faces were very close together. "And, um, there's something else I wanted to ask, too. If you don't mind."

"What is it?"

Ginny's mouth slowly curved into a cheeky grin. She lifted her hand and softly tucked a lock of Luna's wind-blown hair back behind her ear; her touch made Luna shiver. "Is it okay if I kiss you?"

It wasn't a question Luna had to think about. She nodded, and for the first time outside of her imagination, she felt the touch of Ginny's lips on hers. She never had managed to awaken the sleeping beauty in her dream, but now that Ginny was kissing her, she felt gloriously awakened herself, her whole body filled with bright, glowing love.

When they parted, Luna whispered, "Are you dreaming now?"

Ginny shook her head, her lips closed in a knowing smile. "No."

"How do you know?"

"Because nothing is changing or melting away. I don't have to struggle not to wake up. And because..." Ginny slipped her hand into Luna's and intertwined their fingers. "I like you, and I think you like me back. For real."

A breathless little laugh of joy escaped Luna's lips. "I think so too," she said.

*

When they dream together now, Luna isn't always sure whose dream is whose, or if there is a difference. With practice, sharing in Ginny's sleep has begun to feel effortless, like mixing blue and red paint into the smoothest indigo.

They are walking hand in hand. The scene feels blank, like a bare stage, infinite in potential. They are the first two people in the world, the wellspring of all creation. A turquoise line appears beside them, cutting neat and straight into the ground, then forming into a chain of diamonds and fragmenting ever further into a curiously geometric river. A network of crackles spreads like a glaze out from the river and out from their feet, sprouting fuzzy greenness. No image belongs to either one of them alone, but rather they bounce back and forth between them, each adding to the other's thoughts. _Yes, and then, and then, and then..._ As they walk, the world is still being drawn ahead of them, and the triangles and hexagons get smaller, in ever more intricate mosaics, accelerating in complexity over untold eons.

When that thought crosses their linked minds, bright green fish made of ever-dividing emeralds appear among the sapphires of the river. Ginny boldly reaches down to touch them, and expanding circles of diamonds ripple out from her touch in every direction. The part of Luna that observes the dream is proud of her. Ginny used to be so cautious, afraid to do anything that might accidentally awaken herself. She's not afraid any longer.

And now, with Ginny creating half of the dream, it feels to Luna even more like a flight of imagination than like planning something, which makes it all the more spectacular. Sometimes if you look too hard at things or hold their logic too tightly, the essence of them melts away; Luna has found this to be true in waking life as well.

As creation unfolds before them, as the sun rises above the horizon for the first time, they begin to run, still hand in hand, swifter than the wind. And alongside them, there are topaz horses, dazzling in the newborn light, their manes and tails streaming out behind them like rainbows.

Luna never dreamt of horses before she began to dream with Ginny.

Luna knows without words, just from the touch of Ginny's fingers against her own, what they will do next. With a leap that doesn't touch the ground, they are both astride the cosmic horses, and are one with them. Though made of glistening stone, the bodies of the horses feel like feathers beneath the girls' palms and thighs, and the herd takes easy flight beneath a stained-glass sky, open and alive and endless in its impossible wonders.


End file.
